


Summer Visit

by gare_tosetti



Category: In the Company of Shadows - Sonny & Ais
Genre: Emilo being a sad old man, I mean, M/M, POV Emilio, Please be gentle, i don't know what this is
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-30
Updated: 2016-10-30
Packaged: 2018-08-27 23:52:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8422588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gare_tosetti/pseuds/gare_tosetti
Summary: Emilio finds and unexpected face in Monterrey.





	

If there was one think _Lo Mas Chingon_ disliked, it was being followed around by unprofessional little boys. If a person was stupid enough to be sticking their nose where it didn’t belong, they should at least be aware enough to pay attention to their surroundings.

Emilio had to admit, the boy _did_ try, and at least seemed aware he was being followed, but not nearly aware enough.

Emilio was determined to find out about the kid one way or another. He was clearly a foreigner, so it was easy enough following the boy around; his bright red hair stood out in a crowd, and during the days when he sat outside drawing, Emilio had no difficulties disappearing into the ever moving throngs of people.

He didn’t really have a plan when it came to following the boy back to his apartment. Emilio had found the place easily enough on Veracruz within the first few days of trailing the redhead, so he didn’t feel a pressing need to rush there to find out about the kid snooping around in his business. He waited for the humid cover of night one evening before daring to get closer to the building. It looked like a disaster, with balconies sticking out at varying lengths from the squat building, but Emilio noted that they would be easy to climb if he needed to. He walked around the back of the building, considering the structure a moment. If he backed up enough he could see the telling warmth of lights flickering in a few windows.

The heat was suffocating under his hooded jacker, but Emilio took slow, even breaths, and reminded himself that soon he could retreat to the comfort of his air conditioned house. It wasn’t much compared to some of the places he had lived during his days at the Agency, but it was well furnished and he had access to a pool. As long as he had cold air and the basic necessities of booze and cigarettes, he didn’t need much more aside from the occasional company of an anonymous woman to curb his loneliness. All it would take was a phone call, or a knock on his neighbor’s door, and he’d have somebody he could lose himself in for a few short hours.

Emilio waited, leaned against the wall of the building across from the boy’s apartment building, and listened. With the cover of night to stifle the heat in Monterrey, the city was coming to life in a way it couldn’t during the day. The city never stayed truly silent. Emilio could hear car horns in the distance, and the low gurgle of the city as a living entity. Somewhere over the low gurgle, he could hear voices drifting out of a nearby window, a few floors up. When he focused on the sounds he realized that they were speaking English, and he knew it had to be the redhead who spoke terrible Spanish. Following this kid was almost too easy.

He jumped and pulled himself up on the lowest balcony with little effort and no sound. The voices were still above him, so he climbed to the railing and jumped to hang from the next balcony, repeating the process until he was near enough could clearly tell where the sounds were coming from. The voices had stopped speaking, but warm light was shining clearly above him, cutting through the stagnant weight of the night.

Emilio avoided the lights and pulled himself up one last time, keeping his toes on the small ledge on the outer side of the railing with his shoulder wedged against the wall. It felt somewhat cool, even through his sleeves. Emilio was pleased to find the balcony door was cracked open and braced himself against the railing, leaning forward just enough to peek in the side of the door, but not enough to be caught in the light. If he could just lean forward to see inside the apartment, he could get an idea about the kind of person that lived there, about a person who was clearly trained to be snooping around and had no idea what he was getting himself into.

_“Take them off,”_ a low, desperate voice came clearly through the open sliding glass door. Emilio grinned to himself, pleased with his timing and the obvious distraction it would provide. He waited a while, letting the throaty moans of the couple inside grow louder and more engaged before glancing inside.

What he could see of the apartment was sparsely furnished. The most obvious features he could see were a low table in front of a couch and a folded Japanese screen blocking off another section of the studio apartment. The choice seemed odd to Emilio, but he shrugged it off and glanced around what he could see again. The apartment looked lived in, which seemed to fit the tourist, but some of the choices in decoration were brighter than he expected. Deciding he would return another time to go through the inside of the apartment undisturbed, Emilio turned his attention towards the couple.

The boy he was here for was sprawled out on a couch, his head thrown back over the armrest and his red hair a tangled mass in the firm fist of another man a good deal taller than himself. His pants were discarded carelessly on the floor nearby. The taller man had dark skin and dark hair with white streaks going through it, and in the glint of the light, Emilio could make out a ridiculous number of rings sticking out of the man’s ear.

The redhead suddenly cried out and Emilio allowed himself to laugh quietly at how bold the boy was. The couple was so engaged in each other and turned away from the balcony that there was no way they would notice Emilio. He watched them a while longer, noting a tattoo on the taller man’s back. It was a quote from somewhere.

The taller man sat up, saying something in a low voice to his partner. For just a fraction of a second, the side of his face became visible. In that fraction of a second, the whole world changed.

Emilio’s heart stopped when he saw the man’s profile. Even after not having seen that face for years, he would have recognized it anywhere. He forced himself to look away from the sight, to steady himself from dizzying thoughts and the implications that came with them. His grip was painfully tight on the balcony railing. Out of all the places in the world, finding his son here seemed impossible. It couldn’t be real. He needed to get closer, to confirm that the impossible was really still impossible, that it wasn’t—

“Fuck, Sin, Sin, _please_ ,” the redhead breathed like a prayer. Emilio nearly fell from the balcony, his stomach twisting and writhing from the shock of the conflicting emotion,s from the guilt that his son shared his weaknesses, from the pride that his son seemed happy for once—something he had never been able to give him. This wasn’t the boy he had rescued from a prostitute’s basement years ago, this was a man living his own life; a life separate from Emilio, but not separate from the hell of a life he had inevitably dragged Hsin into.

The only comfort was in knowing that his son didn’t need him, because Emilio didn’t know how to be needed. That, at least, was a good thing. Hsin was okay without him, and clearly pleased with the nosy redhead he was about to fuck. Perhaps he wasn’t as bad of a parent if his teachings had prepared Hsin to survive on his own. Emilio would like to think that, but the heaviness of the overwhelming emotions wasn’t letting him free himself so easily of the knowledge of what he had done to the boy.

Emilio didn’t stick around much longer; he already knew how the night would conclude and he couldn’t shake the overwhelming guilt pressing down on his chest and making his breathing that much more labored in the humid heat. As he dropped down to the lowed balcony, he pulled his hood lower, looking forward to the promise of alcohol and cigarettes to dull the night’s events from his mind for even a little while.

**Author's Note:**

> Posting this fic for Emilio's birthday. It's been sitting around on my computer for a while and I kept waiting to post it for who knows why, ahhhh ;-;
> 
> Anyway, Happy Birthday Emilio!
> 
> I hope to get to post more ICoS fic on here, but I don't know how long that'll be.
> 
> Any feedback is greatly appreciated!


End file.
